Writer's Therapy: Recent Episodes
Joseph Hunter
Thinking about writing, talking about writing, and getting writing out of our systems.
I'm Joseph Hunter, an aspiring fiction writer and Creative Writing PhD student. This podcast sees me reflect on the writing process, why we write, and how we can write better.
A dark night of the soul has me questioning many things: my life, my writing, and my output – but not necessarily in that order.
Reading: 'WHITES WASTE PAPER' (unpublished), by Joseph Hunter
I remember the joys of creative collaboration from years gone by. Writing is an inherently solitary pursuit, but that doesn't mean there aren't consolations to be had within that solitude.
Reading: Extracts from '10 Rules for Writing Fiction', The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/20/10-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-two)
Writing is habit-forming, which is the good news. The bad news is, that habit is a slippery thing that can be elusive and untrustworthy.
Readings: Extracts from the journals of Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Hero's Body (2016) by William Giraldi
I explore the relationship between the physicality in fiction, and the physicality of the actual flesh-and-blood reader engaging with that fiction. Sometimes the intensity of that relationship has made me want to devour things...
Reading from: A Moveable Feast (1964), by Ernest Hemingway
A recent experience with music makes me reflect on the apparent impossiblity of trusting one's one judgement in relation to work you have created. The way it seems one day changes with the weather: something that seems to click now becomes discordant later.
Reading: 'There are no essential differences between things' (unpublished), by Joseph Hunter.
Maybe specific words are only ever an attempt to fix a pattern in the mind that is originally formless. And then, too, this grey area between form and formlessness can be captured in writing.
Reading from: Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
Following on from thinking about memoir, I explore the idea that 'story truth' in fiction is something beyond fact, a way of organising and even doing justice to the meaning that is usually buried in the messy stuff of real life.
Reading: Tim O'Brien, 'Form', The Things They Carried (1990)
Having recently written a draft of a memoir, I compare writing fiction to creative non-fiction. In terms of drawing from your everyday life, are there perhaps similarities?
Reading from Failure: A Memoir (unpublished, work in progress), by Joseph Hunter
A sudden loss of vital energy due to a brief illness triggers longer term paranoias, so I try to cheer myself up with words of wisdom from an unfashionable old patrician.
Reading from: The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing (2003), by Norman Mailer
There is a kind of music that lives in langauge that can be brought out in certain passages of writing. As somebody who also dabbles in music, this is a quality I look for in good fiction writing.
Reading: extract from Blood Meridian (1985), by Cormac McCarthy.
Who'd have thought you could rediscover reading when you were already a pretty regular reader? But there's reading, and there's reading. In this episode I think about the language landscapes of good literature, and the visions they can offer.
Reading: 'It will come back' (unpublished, 2023), by Joseph Hunter.
A little success, in the form of my first published short story.
Extract from 'Somewhere Out at Sea' (Fairlight Books, 2022): https://www.fairlightbooks.co.uk/short_stories/somewhere-out-at-sea/
What have I been doing these many years?
Writing, and rewriting. In this episode I talk about how it feels to do a PhD. To dig things up over and over and start again, again and again.
Reading: 'Clogs' (unpublished), by Joseph Hunter.
Comparison is inevitable, and it can be good or bad. Bad, in that it can lead to jealousy. Good, in that it can also mean inspiration and catharsis. We think about the nuances of comparison, and discover that Betty (my dog) is a dog celebrity.
We consider the importance of routine, and the way that a satisfying structure can give your life meaning and purpose. But does a routine mean we can't enjoy the beauty of each moment as it deserves?
Includes a reading from The Philosopher and the Wolf (2008), by Mark Rowlands.
We consider if Oscar Wilde was right to assert that 'All art is quite useless', or if there are uses for art such as fiction writing - to be uplifting, perhaps, or to provide escapism.
Quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) by Oscar Wilde: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/174/174-h/174-h.htm
Jealousy, envy, is part of any creative pursuit. There will always be others who have the success you're looking for. The trick is not to let envy wear away at you and compromise your work.
Quote from Othello III.iii
Writing is a cerebral process, but that doesn't mean that physical fitness is irrelevant. We think about the connection between creativity and bodily exercise, especially when it comes to discipline and the avoidance of malaise.
Haruki Murakami interview in Der Spiegel (2008): https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/spiegel-interview-with-haruki-murakami-when-i-run-i-am-in-a-peaceful-place-a-536608.html
All writers tend to have a daily minimum word count that helps them stay productive. We think about the virtues of this race-to-the-line approach versus putting aside a set number of hours in which to write, instead. Perhaps by creating a set space in which to work we can feel out the story better, with less self-imposed pressure.
Rejection comes with the territory when you're an aspiring writer. You can't let yourself get dejected and stop writing altogether, but we're only human and so it can be a tough thing to deal with. We think about rejection, and the tiny crumbs of encouragement you need in order to keep going.
Stephen King, 'On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Writing:_A_Memoir_of_the_Craft
If jobs and the 'world of work' involve selling your time in order to be part of society, writing is something different. Writing is often about being yourself, cutting off from society at large. A vocation, perhaps, rather than a job. We discuss the implications of this.
Philip Larkin, 'The Trees' (1974): https://poetryarchive.org/poem/trees/
The urge to capture painful things that happen to you, or around you, can be irresistible when you're a writer. In this episode we consider this urge from a moral perspective.
Seamus Heaney, 'Digging': https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47555/digging
Is rewriting a self-explanatory concept? Or is there more to it than meets the eye?
We think about the relationship between rewriting and editing, and if rewriting should really consist of redoing rather than simply refining.
Picasso documentary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_of_Picasso
Iris Murdoch interview: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4383327
After the doing comes the selling. We think about the process of submitting work to literary agents, why it can be difficult, and speculate about the usefulness (or otherwise) of positive visualisation.
Bernadine Evaristo interview: https://www.shortstoryaward.co.uk/news/interview-bernardine-evaristo/
Is it the job of a writer to be different? Or is it possible that in aiming for something unique, experimental writing puts 'being different' over other important functions of literature? Quote from 'Modern Fiction' (1919), by Virginia Woolf: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/monday-or-tuesday-by-virginia-woolf#
If we aren't having new experiences, will we run out of material from which we can create fiction? Or is there an unlimited 'word hoard', as Seamus Heaney describes it, we can delve into as long as we keep our eyes clear? We think about lockdown, and how it may or may not have affected writers.
'North', by Seamus Heaney: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48393/north-56d22998bff6c
A piece of writing can only be worth something once it's actually written. If it lives only in our minds it can only ever be, as Joseph Conrad once wrote, an 'evanescent reverie'. Sometimes, however, it can be difficult to bridge that gap between reverie and reality.
'A Set of Six' by Joseph Conrad: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2305/2305-h/2305-h.htm
In this first ever episode we compare writing fiction to being a hermit living in a dark cave. We also touch on John Keats' concept of "negative capability", and how it relates to writing short stories versus novels.